Adam & Eve: Be Fruitful, Industrious

"Adam began to till the earth, and to have dominion over all the beasts of the field, and to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, as I the Lord had commanded him. And Eve, also, his wife, did labor with him." [Moses 5:1]

Following their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve didn't relinquish responsibility, a regal responsibility to keep the three directives God issued. They also didn't forget the one 'Don't' God spelled out for them, though that 'Don't' is what expanded their understanding of the world around them and helped them to know how to be fruitful, industrious in a not-so-hospitable world.

Subduing the world around them as the consecrated King and Queen of Earth, Adam and Eve's injunction to be fruitful or industrious was one of the four commandments God gave:

1. Do be Industrious, Fruitful

2. Do Not eat the forbidden fruit

3. Do oversee the Garden and the Earth

4. Do populate the Earth with people

Fruitful, to bear fruit, a yield of fruit that is good defines this bounteous descriptor and action appling to all aspects of life, starting, of course, with God's decree to have many offspring.

Fruitful also applies to industry, anxious engagement. Jesus Christ revealed modernly through Joseph Smith that

Men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; for the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward. [D&C 58:27-28]

God invited through commandment to the first people on Earth to be industrious, yield high percentages. The connotation was good yields. There exist many yields in society now and then. Anxiously engaged in a GOOD cause producing GOOD results is what the Lord desire of His children, starting with Adam and Eve. That instruction went to the couple while in the Garden of Eden before the fall.

When they partook of forbidden fruit, slipping down from divinity, the command to be fruitful was not annulled. It remains in effect with all the posterity of Adam and Eve inheriting the responsibility.

While living in paradise, Adam and Eve spent an absorbent amount of time dressing Eden's Garden. It was not a cluttered mess to any degree but always kept in a specific order of care. That order of care is not known to mortal humans, but it is akin to keeping a tidy house cleaned daily. It never gets dirty and never will because it's daily dressed and cared for, studiously!

The plant life in Eden did not die and never overgrew their bounds. When fruits plucked from the trees grew back instantly! Harvest time in Eden was a constant cycle of success! Adam and Eve needed only to keep track of what was needed since all creatures ate of the fruits of the trees and vines.

Why was it important for these people to be industrious?

God, Who is industrious, produced children like He is, creators! Industry is a genetic trait Adam and Eve inherited as the offspring of divinity passing it on to their children in mortality.

God commands industry because that's the culture of heaven. In order to get His children prepared for eternal life they could possibly l lead in the eternities, God prepares them by commanding them to be industrious now!

Fruitfulness or industry signifies a character trait of godliness.

How can the children of God not have it‽ Even Satan has that trait! As a son of God, he persistently works to pull souls away from the truth without rest. Laziness is a sin, but not one of which Satan is guilty. All the children of God have the drive to engage in something. That engagement leads to progress or destruction, but it is a commandment-gift that humans, angels, and demons possess as children of God.

Laziness is a direct result of the fallen condition of mankind in mortality. Again, it does not come from Satan, who is not lazy. Laziness is the result of the idle minds of mortality. The body likes to feel pleasure. There is a spiritual connection between the body and the spirit, which makes a soul. Sensation in the body communicates the possibilities of life. Since this life is a probationary event to prepare for eternity with a physical body, God granted this time as a test-run to see if His children can learn how to subdue the body and the Earth without force.

R. Jared Staudt, employed in the Office of Evangelization and Family Life Ministries of the Archdiocese of Denver wrote in the 2013 article '“Subdue the Earth” and “Till It and Keep It”: Responding to God’s Cultural Commands' the following:

The first command addressed to humanity in the entire Bible is to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion” (Gen 1:28). This command is addressed to man and woman in the first creation story and is addressed to all of humanity. In the second story, Adam is said to have been placed in the Garden “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). God’s first commands are cultural commands. This reveals his primal will for all human beings: to be fruitful in themselves and to enhance the fruitfulness of the earth by their efforts.¹

A large part of dominion over the Earth is subjecting it to the powers of humanity. Adam and Eve held dominion as they subdued the Earth. The authority and property were theirs to do with as the Lord directed.

• Humanity: Be fruitful?
• God: Yes, be fruitful, positively industrious. Make this place a pleasant place to live.
• Humanity: Through force?
• God: No, through cultivation, domestication, and patience as I have done. It's in you.

The best way to win a friend, to subdue him, is to be a friend! There are many tactics out in the world, many of them from Satan, where force and coercion get people and things to do what the enforcer wants them, and those things, to do. Subdue has culturally been misapplied to restraining individuals using force rather than reason and cultivation of trust. Slaves are not as loyal as servants.

Adam and Eve did not subdue the world through force, but cultivations and patience. Each generation of humans after that learned to use this divine technique rarely, if ever, had to worry about domesticated animals going wild again, but because their natures had been changed through training, so much so, it lasts for generations.

Subduing through force lasts for as long as the captive is captive! No trust is developed. Taking the wood to build a house but incorporating other materials to support the weakness of wood, such as nails, concrete, and piping helps the structure to last with different composites complementing each other longer than if only wood and mud were used. Even wood and mud complement each other rather than mud alone or wood alone.

Subduing does not mean forcing things to work the way people want right now, per se, but using ingenuity to complement the materials to work the way they work best until humanity reaches the knowledge of God, who can organize structures and systems from the elemental blocks of creation into doing what He desires.

God asks that humanity yield to Him. He is not above compelling that action, but never would He force. Destruction comes when forcing a round peg into a square opening. Reshaping the peg is subduing.

Adam and Eve, in their quest to fulfill their divine nature as children of God, spent their lives subduing themselves to the wisdom of God and His commandments. No one can enter into righteousness by force! They subdued the world through patient steady labor for generations, and through many generations of posterity.